Tuesday, May 28, 2013

100,000 Christians die for faith every year: Vatican

A top Vatican official has said around 100,000 Christians are killed
every year for reasons linked to their faith and pointed to the Middle
East, Africa and Asia as the biggest problem areas.

Monsignor
Silvano Maria Tomasi was quoted by Vatican radio on Tuesday as saying
that the figures were "shocking" and "incredible".

Tomasi said
Christians were also forced to leave their homes and see their churches
destroyed in some parts of the world, and were often subjected to rapes,
kidnappings and discrimination.

The Vatican official made particular reference to the kidnapping of two Orthodox bishops near Aleppo in Syria last month.

Religious
freedom is beset by "sectarianism, intolerance, terrorism and
exclusionary laws," he said, while also pointing to exceptions like
Bangladesh where he said rights are protected.

Another senior
Vatican figure, the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and
Peace, Mario Toso, said recently that discrimination against Christians
"should be countered in the same way as anti-Semitism and Islamophobia".